‘Windgrass’ sculpture lights up the Katy Prairie at...

1of9New Zealand artist Konstantin Dimopolous poses by his new kinetic sculpture, "Windgrass," at the entrance to Bridgeland on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, in Cypress. . Dimopolous, a native of New Zealand, is best known as the creator of "Blue Trees" a version of which appeared in Houston in 2013 at the Allen Parkway/Waugh Drive cloverleafs.( Elizabeth Conley / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Chronicle / Houston Chronicle

2of9New Zealand artist Konstantin Dimopolous poses by his new kinetic sculpture, "Windgrass," at the entrance to Bridgeland on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, in Cypress. . Dimopolous, a native of New Zealand, is best known as the creator of "Blue Trees" a version of which appeared in Houston in 2013 at the Allen Parkway/Waugh Drive cloverleafs.( Elizabeth Conley / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Chronicle / Houston Chronicle

3of9New Zealand artist Konstantin Dimopolous poses by his new kinetic sculpture, "Windgrass," at the entrance to Bridgeland on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, in Cypress. . Dimopolous, a native of New Zealand, is best known as the creator of "Blue Trees" a version of which appeared in Houston in 2013 at the Allen Parkway/Waugh Drive cloverleafs.( Elizabeth Conley / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Chronicle / Houston Chronicle

4of9New Zealand artist Konstantin Dimopolous poses by his new kinetic sculpture, "Windgrass," at the entrance to Bridgeland on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, in Cypress. . Dimopolous, a native of New Zealand, is best known as the creator of "Blue Trees" a version of which appeared in Houston in 2013 at the Allen Parkway/Waugh Drive cloverleafs.( Elizabeth Conley / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Chronicle / Houston Chronicle

5of9A worker places gray rocks around "Windgrass," a kinetic scuplture by New Zealand artist Konstantin Dimopolous on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, in Cypress. . Dimopolous, a native of New Zealand, is best known as the creator of "Blue Trees" a version of which appeared in Houston in 2013 at the Allen Parkway/Waugh Drive cloverleafs.( Elizabeth Conley / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Chronicle / Houston Chronicle

6of9New Zealand artist Konstantin Dimopolous poses by his new kinetic sculpture, "Windgrass," at the entrance to Bridgeland on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, in Cypress. . Dimopolous, a native of New Zealand, is best known as the creator of "Blue Trees" a version of which appeared in Houston in 2013 at the Allen Parkway/Waugh Drive cloverleafs.( Elizabeth Conley / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Chronicle / Houston Chronicle

7of9New Zealand artist Konstantin Dimopolous poses by his new kinetic sculpture, "Windgrass," at the entrance to Bridgeland on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, in Cypress. . Dimopolous, a native of New Zealand, is best known as the creator of "Blue Trees" a version of which appeared in Houston in 2013 at the Allen Parkway/Waugh Drive cloverleafs.( Elizabeth Conley / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Chronicle / Houston Chronicle

8of9New Zealand artist Konstantin Dimopolous has foreman Mario Martinez measure a part of the sculpture at his new kinetic sculpture, "Windgrass," at the entrance to Bridgeland on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, in Cypress. . Dimopolous, a native of New Zealand, is best known as the creator of "Blue Trees" a version of which appeared in Houston in 2013 at the Allen Parkway/Waugh Drive cloverleafs.( Elizabeth Conley / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Chronicle / Houston Chronicle

9of9New Zealand artist Konstantin Dimopolous hugs his foreman Mario Martinez as they finish his sculpture, "Windgrass," at the entrance to Bridgeland on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, in Cypress. . Dimopolous, a native of New Zealand, is best known as the creator of "Blue Trees" a version of which appeared in Houston in 2013 at the Allen Parkway/Waugh Drive cloverleafs.( Elizabeth Conley / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Chronicle / Houston Chronicle

Konstantin Dimopoulos had to speak loudly one recent morning to be heard above the slight clicking din of his newest public sculpture, which was swaying like giant bamboo in the wind out on the Katy Prairie.

“What fascinates me is line, color, movement and mass,” said the artist, who is most widely known as the creator of the international “Blue Trees” project. “I love repetition. Even the ‘Blue Trees’ is really repetition.”

“Windgrass,” made of clumps of flexible carbon fiber shafts that reach as high as 26 feet, is a vivid orange-red that has sprouted from concrete bases covered in gray rocks just a few feet from the Grand Parkway. One can imagine the shafts as giant stalks of prairie grass glowing in the sunset, or maybe on fire, which once was nature’s way of controlling herself.

In two sections, each with several clumps, the sculpture rises above a corner of Bridgeland Creek Parkway that still looks vast and relatively open beside a huge new educational village.

The developer, Howard Hughes Corporation, commissioned Dimopoulos to create what it says is just the first of several major artworks to come within Bridgeland, a master-planned community in Cypress that eventually will have 20,000 homes. (More than 3,000 are currently occupied.)

While Dimopoulos’ “Blue Trees Houston” project brightened up the trunks of the crepe myrtles at the Allen Parkway/Waugh Drive traffic cloverleafs only for a few months — intentionally ephemeral — “Windgrass” is permanent.

Bridgeland senior project manager Tricia Brasseaux said the Bridgeland Creek Parkway entrance won’t always be simply a drive-by art experience: That corner will one day be the heart of a town center with shops and restaurants.

Dimopoulos, a native of New Zealand who lives in Chatanooga, Tenn., said the color of “Windgrass” suggests his admiration for Mark Rothko, while its kinetic action nods to work by his late countryman Len Lye. The sculpture also continues a series Dimopoulos began 17 years ago with his first public artwork, “Pacific Grass,” for the Meridian Wind Sculpture Walkway in Wellington, New Zealand, which was built to change visitors’ perceptions about one of the windiest places on earth.

On the Katy Prairie, which is being consumed and paved over by development, environmentalists might find a sculpture that celebrates the native coastal prairie ecosystem ironic. Brasseaux quickly responds that 3,000 of Bridgeland’s 11,400 acres have been conserved as wildlife-friendly open space, including a linear lake with a birding tower and aquatic plantings, since the prairie provides critical habitat for many migratory birds, especially water fowl.

Art consultant Julie Kinzelman appreciates the introduction of public art in an area that has none. She and Brasseaux have discussed commissions for the community for more than a decade. She recommended Dimopoulos because his work “responds so beautifully to the environment,” she said. “It elevates the entire perception of the area … beginning a conversation about how art can function in this location.”

The sensory nature of “Windgrass” will give people a unique way to experience art, Kinzelman added. Over time, public art can become overlooked, but she believes the sound, movement and height of Dimopoulos’ sculpture will be hard to ignore. “It’s such a grand gesture.”

The artist is pleased that he was involved early in the game, well ahead of the town center’s construction, so that the art can be used to help define the built environment rather than needing to respond to it.

For the foreseeable future, adjacent to the low-slung Bridgeland signage, notable for its stainless steel swoops that light up at night, “Windgrass” makes art the star.

Molly Glentzer, a staff arts critic since 1998, writes mostly about dance and visual arts but can go anywhere a good story leads. Through covering public art in parks, she developed a beat focused on Houston's emergence as one of the nation's leading "green renaissance" cities.

During about 30 years as a journalist Molly has also written for periodicals, including Texas Monthly, Saveur, Food & Wine, Dance Magazine and Dance International. She collaborated with her husband, photographer Don Glentzer, to create "Pink Ladies & Crimson Gents: Portraits and Legends of 50 Roses" (2008, Clarkson Potter), a book about the human culture behind rose horticulture. This explains the occasional gardening story byline and her broken fingernails.

A Texas native, Molly grew up in Houston and has lived not too far away in the bucolic town of Brenham since 2012.